


Dear

by merelypassingtime



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Epistolary, I'm Sorry, Letters, M/M, World War II, Yeah-not a cheerful time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26576530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelypassingtime/pseuds/merelypassingtime
Summary: When Bucky stumbles across a folder full of letters hidden in the closet he and Clint share, he’s not prepared for the flood of memories and emotions they evoke.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 38
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CruciatusForeplay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruciatusForeplay/gifts).



> This was a hard, dark story to tell, and I can’t begin to thank the lovely CruciatusForeplay for not only betaing, but also holding my hand while I worked through it.  
> All the love in the world to you, dear. ;)

The oppressive heat had finally broken the night before in a drenching thunderstorm that left the air crisp and blessedly free of humidity for the first time in what felt like months. Between that and all the school supplies popping up in the stores, Bucky knew his favorite time of year had officially begun: Hoodie Season.

That was presenting a bit of a problem though since, in order to start the season off right, he needed his lucky hoodie. Not that he would admit to anyone that it was lucky, even if it was the hoodie he’d been wearing the first time he kissed Clint and when the Yankees fell out of the playoffs. No, he only liked it because it was super soft and the cuffs of the sleeves were stretched out enough not to catch in the metal plates at his wrist anymore. That was all. Really. He entirely wasn’t going to be heartbroken if it turned out to be gone for good, like it was beginning to look like it might be.

He’d been halfheartedly looking for it for a few days, but now with the weather cool enough to be actively uncomfortable to a guy who’d spent too much time frozen, he either needed to find it or let it go and pick another one to be his favorite.

Of course, he probably shouldn’t have waited until he was running late to meet Clint for lunch to decide that, Bucky admitted as he crawled his way further into the closet. Still, it had only just crossed his mind that the hoodie might have slipped off its hanger and fallen on the floor back here, unnoticed in the shadows since spring.

Reaching the very back of the closet, he found that he was half right. 

The hoodie had indeed fallen off its hanger but it wasn’t on the floor, it was on top of a battered cardboard box that Bucky had never noticed before. Curious, he picked the hoodie off of it and in the dim light he was just able to read Clint’s cramped handwriting on the top: **Tax returns 2007-2011.**

Bucky narrowed his eyes, suspicious. He was ninety percent sure Clint had never filed a tax return in his life, and, even if he had, the idea that he would then keep them neatly organized and labeled was beyond all belief. 

No, something was definitely up, and he didn’t think twice before dropping the hoodie back on top of the box and backing out of the closet, dragging both things with him.

He’d planned to throw the very dusty but still clearly lucky hoodie into the laundry before carrying the box out to the kitchen so he could look at it when he got back from lunch. Instead, the second he was out of the closet he shrugged the hoodie on and, still sitting on the cold hardwood floor, he pulled open the flaps of the box where they had been tucked under each other, too curious to wait.

He wasn’t sure what to expect. Archery supplies seemed like the best bet; this wouldn’t even be the strangest place Bucky had found bits of broken arrows, fletching, and tools since he moved into Clint’s apartment. That or perhaps it would be yet another weapons cache, since Clint shared Bucky’s views on just how many weapons a happy home should have.

With that in mind, Bucky leaned away from the box before using his metal arm to flip the flaps open just in case it was booby trapped. When nothing happened, he gave the box a quick shake and waited a few more seconds to be sure before peering in cautiously.

At first, the mess of loose papers that met his gaze was a disappointment, and Bucky wondered if maybe the label hadn’t been a lie after all. Then he looked closer and found that nothing in the pile looked remotely like a tax return. 

Puzzled, he picked up a bright purple piece of fabric that was half buried in the debris and held out what turned out to be a tunic made out of some stretchy fabric that sparkled in the midday sunshine, sending little glints of reflected light to dance on the bedroom walls. As he held it up something fell from the folds, but he ignored it to look inside the collar where he found the name ‘Hawkeye’ written in black marker. 

Turning it over again, it suddenly occurred to Bucky that this must be part of Clint’s costume from his time at the circus. He was shocked by how small it was, and his heart twisted a little as he wondered for the first time how young Clint had been at the time.

He also realized that this must be a box full of memorabilia from the past that Clint was so careful to never talk about. Without thinking, Bucky picked up the piece of paper that had fallen from inside the costume and had his guess confirmed.

Four people smiled up at him from a faded color photograph: a man, a woman, and two young boys. Clint’s family, Bucky thought. Not that he would have recognized Clint as the tiny, smiling toddler in the shot, but it turned out he looked remarkably like his mother. It wasn’t just that she had the same bright blue eyes, it was that they both had the same sad stubbornness behind those eyes. Bucky wondered if that was genetic or if it was a result of suffering the same environment. 

A wave of guilt hit Bucky like a freight car, and he dropped the photo back in the box as if it’d burnt him. Clint wouldn’t want him to be here, poking through his past, anymore than Bucky would want Clint to go though his own past.

Quickly, he put the costume back in the box too, making sure to push a few things on the top layer around to half bury it again, and was about to reseal the flaps on the box when he caught a glimpse of his own name written on a manilla folder now visible in the pile of loose detritus.

He knew he shouldn’t look, he really did, but his conscience fought a fierce battle with his curiosity, and curiosity won. A quick glance wouldn’t hurt, right? After all, it had his name on it with another mostly covered word that he couldn’t make out. Clint would never know if he just checked to see what that second word was before he put the box back and pretended he’d never seen it.

Casting a guilty look around the room to make sure Clint hadn’t magically appeared to disapprove, Bucky gently nudged a battered copy of Oliver Twist down enough so he could read, **Bucky’s Letters.**

Turned out, knowing the second word was worse, because Bucky was completely sure he’d never written Clint any letters, and the odds of Clint knowing another Bucky seemed remote. 

After another internal struggle, he flicked the folder open, and saw that it held a neon pink piece of paper that was absolutely covered in Clint’s tiny, untidy writing. Bucky brought the folder closer to his face until he could make out the first line.

“Dear Bucky,” it said.

He blinked, then squinted closer at the two words, wondering why Clint would write him a letter then hide it in a box in their closet. 

Hoping for answers, he slipped a finger behind the letter and pulled it towards him so he could peek at the next page, noting in passing that the pink paper was the backside of a flyer advertising The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders, but the next letter only raised more questions. 

It was old, clearly too old to have been written to Clint let alone by him, and the yellowed page was sealed in some sort of hard plastic like it had come from a museum. Bucky squinted down at the faded, nearly illegible ink looking for the date and was shocked to instantly recognize the handwriting as his own.

He didn’t think twice about it, he took the small bundle of papers out of the folder and started reading them, beginning with the letter he didn’t remember writing.


	2. Chapter 2

March 11th, 1942

Hey Punk,

Sorry to take so long to write to you, but they’ve been keeping us pretty busy here and, okay, I was still pretty mad. 

But, if there’s anything good to be said about army life it’s that it leaves you too damned tired to hold grudges, no matter what your best friend might have yelled after you when you left.

It also gives you a lot of time to think about what you might have yelled back, too.

So, I’m sorry. I said some stuff that I really regret, but I also said some stuff I stand by. I _am_ glad you’re not here with me, and not because I want all the glory or whatever else you said, but because things are hard here Stevie, and not in the sort of way even you could think your way out of. And, no, it’s not just the physical stuff either, though, God knows, the pack they make us march with weighs more than you do. It’s all the other stuff that I think you’d take to like a cat to water. 

Stuff like taking orders without question. On our very first day, they took away everything we’d brought with us and marched us into a barber to get our heads shaved. The guy three people in front of me smarted off about it, and they forced him into the chair and held him there while the barber shaved him all the way down to the scalp. I just stood there and watched, thinking about how you’d probably have been the one starting bootcamp as bald as an egg.

And it’s not just that, they don’t tell you how much of being in the army is being yelled at. Yelled at for not moving fast enough, yelled at for not cleaning your gear right, yelled at for just existing. My drill sergeant screamed at me in front of the whole squad for what felt like forever yesterday because he couldn’t get a quarter to bounce high enough off my bunk after I made it. Admit it, you’d have yelled right back and ended up on KP duty for the rest of your natural life.

Actually, the bunks are another thing I bet you’d hate. Well, I think it’s more the lack of privacy you’d hate. We do everything as a group, we sleep thirty-six to a barracks, then we all get up together, eat awful food together, do maneuvers together, hell, we even shit together. There’s never a moment to yourself, to write a letter, or sketch, or read without a dozen guys right there to look over your shoulder and make wiseass remarks.

For all that somehow it’s also lonely in a way I’ve never been before, which doesn’t make sense. Here I am, surrounded by people every second of the day, yet I’ve never felt so alone.

Maybe it’s just because I’m on the outs with my best friend. 

You know, this is the first time we’ve been apart more than a day since we were little kids, and I miss you so much, Stevie. Especially thinking you might still be angry at me. 

I know I’ve got no right to ask when there’s nothing you wanted more than to be here next to me, but I’d sure like to hear from you even if it’s just a few lines so I know if you are still my friend.

Hopefully your pal,

Bucky

\---

April 24th, 1996

Dear Bucky,

Hi! My name is Clint and I am 13 years old, and I work at The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders!!

Isn’t that cool? A real circus! Not many kids can say that.

That’s why I decided to start keeping a diary about it and all the stuff that I do because someday when I’m older and famous people are gonna wanna look back and hear all about me. 

I don’t know what I’ll be famous for yet. Maybe I’ll become an astronaut or an actor, I don’t know. I just know I will be famous someday, and that people will all stop me in the street and ask for my autograph. It’s going to be awesome.

Barney says that’s stupid, and that the only thing I could ever be famous for is being a pain in his ass, but he’s wrong. After all, he said that I wouldn’t even make it a week here at Carson’s, but now I’ve been here a whole month.

It’s a little bit like how you described being in the army, a lot of carrying heavy things, getting yelled at all the time, and eating awful food, but it’s still better than being back in the orphanage we were in before. At least here nobody really notices me and if they do there are so many places to hide. Plus, now that it’s warmer, I found a place to sleep way up in the rigging of the big tent where people can’t find me. I tried to show it to Barney but he said he doesn’t like heights which is crazy because heights are the best!! I love being able to see everyone when they can’t see me.

That’s where I am right now, hidden in the bunch of ropes the trapeze artists use for their show. The matinee just ended, so I’ll be fine here for a couple hours until the evening show starts, then I have to go see what they want me to do. 

I hope I can be a clown again. Dennis, who’s the boss of the clowns, says I’m pretty good at it because I’m so small that I fit in the car even when it’s full. I like doing that a lot better than some other stuff they make me do.

Maybe, if I work hard enough, I can be a clown all the time, though I don’t think that would help me become famous. There aren’t any famous clowns anymore.

Maybe when I’m a little older I can become famous like you did, by joining the army. I could go to war, fight bad guys, and save people.

We learned all about you in my history class right before I left school. Well, we learned about Captain America and the Howling Commandos, but they talked about you too, and this kid I shared a room with last summer had some of the Captain America comics. He wouldn’t let me read them, but I still did one day when he was out and he never knew it.

Then, about a week ago I accidentally dropped a box of equipment I was carrying for this guy and he was really mad so I ran away. He chased me for a while until I got enough ahead of him that he couldn’t see me and ducked into this tent called The Cabinet of Curiosities. 

It has all this cool stuff like a little museum. So, after I was sure the guy wouldn’t find me, I looked around at everything. A lot of it’s pretty lame, but right in the middle of all the weird stuffed creatures and gross things in jars, there’s this huge picture of you standing next to Captain America. Captain America looks all serious and stern like he’s about to lecture me about brushing my teeth like my mom used to, but you’re smiling at the camera and you look so cool.

Next to it there’s a big card that tells about you, like when you were born and when you died and how you were Captain America’s best friend. Of course, I already knew all about that, but below it there were some actual letters that you wrote to Captain America locked in a case. 

I didn’t have time then, but I came back later that night and read them all. It was so cool, seeing all about the war in your own handwriting, knowing that those letters had actually been a part of history. 

I read them all twice, then, because it was really cold that night and I didn’t want to go back and sleep with everyone else who doesn’t have their own trailer on the ground in the big tent, I curled up next to the case with your letters and slept there. It was nice to wake up and see you smiling down at me. I slept there the next couple of nights too until I found this place. It’s safer here, but I still miss your picture and reading your letters.

You sounded so smart and so nice, like you really cared about your friend a lot. I sorta wish there was someone nice to send me letters like that. 

I also remembered that at the same time we were learning about you we learned about a girl named Anne Frank. She was famous because she wrote a diary when she was the same age as me, but she wrote it like she was writing letters to a friend named Kitty. So I thought maybe I should write a diary, but I don’t have any friends to write to, only Barney and he’s not really a friend just my dumb brother and I don’t want him reading this at all. That’s when I started thinking that maybe I could pretend your letters were to me and write you back for my diary.

I bet if you were here you’d look out for me like you did for Captain America, and I could complain about the food and getting yelled at and bossed around and you’d understand. You’d also understand how it feels to be surrounded by people every second of the day, but still feel so lonely, like you say in your letter.

I’m really lonely too, but talking to you has made me feel better.

I have to go though, people are starting to come in to get ready for the show, but thanks for listening.

Your pal,

Clint


	3. Chapter 3

August 27th, 1942

Hey Punk,

Sorry to hear you’re down another person at your office and that they’re keeping you so busy, but congratulations on the raise! If they are going to work you to death at least you’ll get a nice coffin out of it.

Seriously though, I hope you’re not working too hard. You need to take care of yourself since I’m not there to do it for you. It’s almost fall and you know how you get. Just keep up on your medicine and not to be too stupid. 

I say that last bit because I heard from a little birdie that you were all the way out in Paramus a few weeks ago for no good reason. You wouldn’t be doing anything out there I’m gonna kick your ass for on my next leave are you?

Look, I know you never learned the meaning of the word quit, but maybe you should look it up sometime before you go and land yourself in real trouble.

There’s nothing wrong with the work you’re doing right where you are, Steve. It may not be what you want to do, but remember, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” 

In fact, you’re probably doing the war effort more good right now than I am. I did finally get done with the extra [redacted] training they wanted me to do and I must have done okay at it because they even bumped me up to Specialist. It was pretty fun, but I was glad to be assigned to a unit at last. I thought that’d mean that I was gonna get to go out and do some good at last, but instead they have us all cooling our heels waiting for something.

Scuttlebutt says there is a big op in the works, which is sorta exciting but also sorta terrifying. The guys I’m with now are good guys, I mean two of them are from Brooklyn too and one is from Queens, but, just like me, they’re fresh out of Basic and green as grass. 

Our lieutenant is from the Reserve somewhere out west, and I sorta wish he’d stayed there. He doesn’t seem very interested in us training or even learning our names, but he’s made sure to tell us several times that whatever this big thing we’re part of is gonna get him promoted to captain and we’d better not fuck that up for him. So, that’s a real comfort.

I guess I’ll feel better when we actually move out, this waiting is getting on my nerves. Of course, once we are on our way that’d mean I have less time to write your dumb ass and make sure you’re staying out of trouble, but that’s at least a more familiar worry.

I mean it though; take care of yourself, and if you do come down with anything let me know. I’ll be there if you need me, no matter what.

Sincerely,

Bucky

\---

November 17th, 1996

Dear Bucky,

Guess what!!

I’m writing you this from my very own bed!

And, no, not back at the orphanage like I was scared was going to happen, but in the Swordsman’s trailer. He says I can stay here with him all winter so I don’t have to go back to the orphanage at all!

But let me tell you the whole story, because it’s pretty cool.

So you know how Billy and Hal just won’t leave me alone and I was running out of places to hide from them? Well, they didn’t find me, but they did find where I’d stashed my bag and they had it out behind the back lot when Leon told me about it.

It made me so angry, seeing all my books and my letters all dumped out on the ground while they dug through them and laughed, so I grabbed a crowbar off one of the flatbeds and attacked them.

Okay, I admit, it was pretty stupid of me, but you didn’t see them, Bucky!! Hal was standing on my copy of A Wrinkle in Time, and the pages were all torn. I hit him first. 

Luckily, neither of them had seen me coming, so I got in a good hit right in the middle of his back. I probably should’ve aimed for his head, but I wasn’t mad enough to do that to him. The hit took him down okay anyway, and I managed to get Billy in the leg pretty good too while he was just staring at Hal cursing and rolling around and ruining my poor book even more.

After that things went really fast and not very good for me, and I regretted not hitting Hal in the head. They had me on the ground and were kicking me then suddenly they weren’t any more. When I was sure the kicking wasn’t going to start again, I looked up and saw why they stopped; the guy from the Swordsman act was standing over me. 

I remember him from watching his show right after I’d joined Carson’s. It was awesome, he started out with some karate moves, then moved on to doing moves with these two short swords. Halfway through that another guy in black ninja robes pretended to sneak up on him and they had a huge fight dancing all around the ring, cutting ropes clean through with a single swipe, and making sparks fly every time they crossed blades. So cool! But then his shows stopped about halfway through the summer.

I just assumed he’d left for somewhere better until I saw him there. I thanked him, but he didn’t say anything back, he just kept giving me a weird look, like I was a math problem he was trying to work out. Maybe he was just trying to figure out who I was because when he did speak it was to ask if I was Barney’s brother. 

That question almost never turns out well for me, but I still told the truth. He just nodded and offered me a hand up. I didn’t take it, just stood up on my own, and he nodded again for some reason and kept standing there while I shoved everything back in my bag.

It was only when I turned to go that out of nowhere he asked if I wanted to be his apprentice. When I asked what that would mean, he said he’d train in martial arts and sword fighting so I could be the ninja guy in his act.

That sounded great, but I didn’t want to seem too eager so I asked what I’d get for doing all that. At first he was angry because he thought I was asking for money, but then I explained how I didn’t have anywhere to stay for the off-season and he said that’s no problem and brought me here to his trailer and showed me this bunk.

It’s small and it’s up right against the roof, but it’s perfect!

I can keep all my things here and Billy and Hal probably won’t mess with them. Just in case though, I think I’m gonna have Roman teach me how to pick locks like he does on the townie’s cars. That way I can get into the case with your letters and hide my really important stuff like my pictures from home and these letters. It would let me look at your letters too, instead of reading them through the thick, scratched up plastic. I won’t touch them though, I promise. I don’t want to damage them or anything, just get a little closer.

Maybe I’ll go ask now, because Master Duquesne- that’s what he told me to call him because he’s going to be my teacher in… I forget. I remember it’s not karate, he called it something else but it’s like karate, and that’s what teachers are called in it. Anyway, he says my training is going to start tomorrow at dawn and that I have to work really hard at it if I’m going to be good enough for his show by spring. I promised him I would, and I meant it. 

Not because of this bed and the food, oh! I forgot to tell you about that! He says I need to eat a lot more meat so I can build up my muscles so he gave me a huge meal of chicken and beans before he headed out to the g-top. I mean, both of those are great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s even better to feel like I’m really doing something worthwhile. I have a goal to work at instead of floating around and doing whatever anyone tells me to, hoping to get a meal or some money out of it.

It’s sort of exciting but it’s also sort of terrifying. What if I’m not good enough and Master Duquesne decides to get a new apprentice? What will I do? Will I have to go back to the orphanage then?

I don’t want to think about that, so I’m going to go find Roman and see if he’ll teach me lock picking.

Sincerely,

Clint

P.S. I’m so mad! I found Roman, but he was drunk and didn’t want to teach me anything. That was okay, I’ll try again later sometime earlier in the day. But Barney was there too, drinking and looking so much like Dad that it scared me.

It got worse too. When he saw me he got up and stalked right at me, yelling about how I’d taken his gig with the Swordsman and how I was an ungrateful little shit .

I guess that Barney had been training with Master Duquesne since his old partner had left this summer and never bothered telling me, then yesterday he got fired. Not that Barney admitted that, he said he quit because Master Duquesne was a slavedriver and that he wasn’t going to work so hard to make ‘that old drunk look good’.

I asked him if he quit then why was he so mad at me for taking the job, and he backhanded right on the same side of my head Billy had kicked earlier. I went down to the ground for the second time today, which is super embarrassing. I thought Barney would hit me again, but Roman grabbed his arm before he could and he shrugged him off and walked away instead.

Now I’m dizzy and my head hurts and the rest of my bruises from the fight earlier hurt too but I still have to get up in a few hours and train hard so I don’t get fired like Barney did. 

It’s going to suck, but I’ll get through it because I don’t know the meaning of the word quit, just like Captain America didn’t.

If I can, I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Good night, Bucky.


	4. Chapter 4

May 22nd, 1943

Hey Punk,

So, you probably already got the letter from the War Department about me getting injured. Sorry, I should have warned you beforehand that I have you down as my next of kin but I wanted to make sure that if anything bad did happen you’d be the one to break it to my ma. 

I sorta hope you didn’t worry her with this one though. It wasn’t a bad wound, just a little shrapnel in my left arm and a concussion. I was lucky. Too lucky.

The rest of my squad wasn’t so lucky, Stevie. I’m the only one who made it back in one piece. Or at all. 

It was that asshole lieutenant. I told you about him, right? Anyway, I don’t know how he managed it but he got turned around on the way to our designated patrol area. I told him we were lost, but he didn’t believe me. Well, maybe he did believe but wouldn’t admit he was wrong; that sounds more like him. Either way, he managed to march us right into a whole fucking Panzer Division right outside of [redacted] and now he’s just as dead as everyone else but me.

I don’t even know how I survived. I heard the krauts all shouting and saw the turrets of the tanks wheeling around towards us, then I don’t remember anything else until late that night when I sorta came back to my senses and found myself wandering around the hills behind the German line. I followed the noise from our artillery back to the rest of the company, where they told me what happened to my squad.

The doctor here says that’s not unusual, the not remembering. I can’t decide if it’s a blessing or a curse. I sorta feel like if I just knew what happened, knew that I’d done everything I could to get my guys out, I’d feel better, but, in my more honest moments, I have to admit that’s a load of shit. There’s nothing that could ever make this better.

The Army’s not holding me responsible anyway. In fact, for my ‘bravery and insight’ they’re not only giving me a Bronze Star, they’re gonna move me up to sergeant. Which would feel like an honor, except it doesn’t. My men aren’t any less dead for my bravery and insight.

It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I guess the fight in this neck of the woods is over, so the army is willing to give one injured soldier a little bit of leave. As soon as they think I’m patched up enough, I’m getting two weeks off to come home while they find me a new unit. I even asked again about the 107th and my Captain said he’d see what he could do.

I should be back stateside sometime in June, I’ll send you a wire when I know for sure.

Looking forward to seeing you,

Bucky

\---

September 9th, 1998

Fuck, Bucky. I’ve had some pretty horrible days in the last couple of years here, but last weekend was an all-time low. I don’t even know where to start telling you about it.

If you were here you’d probably sit down next to me, ruffle my hair, and say, “Start at the beginning, punk, and tell me what’s bugging you.” So that’s what I’ll do. 

I mean, it was technically Sunday when everything went wrong, but really it all started on Saturday, even though Saturday was actually a pretty good day. So good that I should’ve known shit was about to go wrong. 

We had a huge crowd the Friday night before, which seemed to settle ~~Mas~~ Duquesne down a little finally so I wasn’t surprised when he wasn’t around Saturday morning. I did all my normal exercises, then I ran through all the new ones Mr Chisholm has me doing. Actually, I did then twice for good measure before I wandered over to the Ivanov’s trailer to help them train their dogs. Not that they really need much training, they are such good dogs, and the Ivanovs are nice people. They asked again if I was sure I didn’t want to come and winter with them this year, but I still said no. They don’t need my help with anything really, and I know they are already struggling. I’d just be another mouth for them to feed, and I can’t do that to them.

I did let them feed me lunch though and teach me a little more Russian before I left, then I ran through my exercises again and spent a few hours shooting the bow Mr Chisholm lent me. I’m getting pretty good with it, even if Mr Chisholm won’t admit it.

I had just finished making dinner, when Duquesne came back. I thought that he must have won big or got laid or something because he was happy for a change. He didn’t demand to know what I did all day, which would have been okay since I mostly trained like I’m supposed to, and he didn’t complain about my cooking, which he could’ve since I didn’t think he’d be there so I made mac and cheese with tuna. 

Mostly he just talked about how good the crowd was for this late in the year and how it was going to be a nice payday for a change. Then he told me he was adding the elbow strike and double handed overhead strike back into the act, which we hadn’t done or even rehearsed since he came in a little too fast and I didn’t get my tonfa up in time and ended up with six stitches in my forearm. After he told me that I spent the rest of the evening worrying I’d mess it up again, but it went fine in the show and ~~Ma~~ Duquesne even winked at me when I managed the block cleanly.

It really was a good day, and that’s all it would have been, and I could have gone to sleep and woken up the next day in my own bunk and done it all again if only I wasn’t such a dumbass.

God, I don’t even really want to write about the rest of it, but I don’t know what else to do. It hurts to think about, Bucky. Of course, it’s not like I’m doing a very good job of not thinking about it, so I might as well get it off my chest, right? And you’ve always been the person I could tell anything to, even the painful stuff.

It’s all my own fault you see, which probably isn’t a surprise. It’s just I was so nervous about doing the overhead strike again that I brought my book to read while waiting for my cue, even though I know for a fact that it’s a good way to lose a book. That’s just what happened too, after our act was over I completely forgot about the book until I was laying down to sleep and wanted to read. So, I got out of bed and headed back to the big tent to see if it might still be there. It was and I was really happy on the walk back until I saw Duquesne slipping out of Mr Carson’s trailer.

A smart person would have minded their own damn business, finished going back to bed and that would have been the end of it.

An idiot would call out, “Hey, Master Duquesne. Whatcha doing?”

Guess which one I was.

I’m not sure why Duquesne didn’t lie. I wasn’t suspicious or anything, just curious. Maybe he was too surprised to come up with anything, or maybe I knew him too well, because the second he saw me the look on his face told me he was up to something bad. Something that involved coming out of the carnival owner’s office- where the whole day’s take is kept- in the middle of the night.

Yeah, didn’t take a genius to work that one out, and I had another really good opportunity to walk away that I also ignored.

I don’t know why. I mean, it shouldn’t have been a shock, everyone here steals and I knew all about Duquesne’s gambling debts, it’s why we only had mac and cheese and rice all of last week. Somehow though, I just couldn’t believe it.

This was _Master_ Duquesne, who took me in when I needed a place and taught me as much as he could than even found someone else to teach me more too. Who used to sit around the trailer at night sometimes and tell me stories about how he fought for freedom and justice and helped liberate his whole country when he was young.

I thought he was a hero like you, but here he was- just another small time crook and liar like everyone else.

It really hurt to find that out, and that must have shown on my face somehow because he flinched away from me. That made me think that maybe I could still fix this, so I said as quietly and evenly as I could, “It’s not too late. You could still put the money back and we can go talk to Carson.”

I meant that we could ask Mr Carson for an advance or something, but I think he thought I was saying I was going to turn him in because before I even finished the sentence he roared and charged at me, and for the third time in not even two minutes, I missed an opportunity to get away. 

If I had been a little quicker I could have gotten lost in the darkness and hid until morning. When he would’ve had a chance to cool down and we could have talked about it.

I wasn’t quicker though, so now I’m here- laying on the floor in Mr Chisholm’s trailer with three broken ribs, a broken arm, and a concussion.

I don’t remember the fight at all, but Mr Chisholm and Barney got there in time to see the end of it and they both agree Duquesne was going to kill me. If that’s the case, then I’m glad I don’t remember anything. It’s like you said, there’s nothing that could ever make this better, so at least I don’t have to carry the memory of Duquesne hurting me around in my head forever. That’s a blessing.

What I remember instead is waking up sometime Sunday afternoon in the cleanest room I’ve ever seen with a lady who looked kind but tired leaning over me. Turned out she was a doctor, and the room was in the local hospital, which sucked.

Not the doctor, just being in the hospital sucked because I really hate them a lot. The doctor was nice for a change though, she told me about my injuries and what I needed to do to take care of them without being all judgy or asking how I got them or what my ‘home environment’ was like. 

She also told me that my brother and ‘father’ said they’d be back in a couple hours to check on me. I guessed that meant they were outside waiting for me to escape so we didn’t have to pay for the visit. I think the doctor knew it too because when she was done talking she left my clothes, a written copy of her instructions, and a bottle of pain pills on the chair next to my bed. My book was even there, a little battered and with some blood on the cover, but still readable. 

The stitching on her jacket said her name was Dr Reyes, and, when we get far enough away from here, maybe I’ll write her a letter to say thank you. Or maybe not, just in case she decides to take an interest in me and ‘fix’ my life. I’m doing fine on my own and I don’t need her charity. Well, except the clothes and the pain meds, I did sorta need those.

Let me tell you though, getting dressed with broken ribs and a broken arm is really hard, and I wouldn’t recommend it. I managed though and even got out of the little hospital without being seen so all that time I spent dressed as a ninja seems to have paid off. I was right about Mr Chisholm and Barney too, they were waiting for me a block away in Chisholm’s old Chevy. 

On the way back, they told me what they’d seen of the fight and how they stopped Duquesne and saved my life. Pretty quickly it turned into a fight about who exactly had done the saving, so I don’t know if I believe either of them very much. Mostly I ignored their screaming and tried my best not to throw up from the pounding in my head. Luckily, the shouting didn’t seem as loud as it usually does and even now it still feels a little like my ears are stuffed with cotton balls. I wonder if that’s because of the concussion. I should have asked the doctor before I ran off. 

Anyway, when they finally shut up, Mr Chisholm asked what me and Duquesne had been fighting about. I thought about lying, but didn’t. That started the yelling again at least from Barney who told me what a dumbass I am and how after everything Duquesne had done for me I should’ve had his back no matter what.

I didn’t argue, I couldn’t argue really, and I didn’t cry either, even though I wanted to.

Thank goodness Mr Chisholm stayed quiet and when Barney was done he told me that Duquesne had pulled up stakes and left. He took all my clothes and equipment with him too, leaving me with just a bloody tee shirt, pajama pants, and my copy of Oliver Twist. Of course, most of my letters and all my money are still hidden in your case, but I’m not about to tell anyone that.

Hopefully, I won’t even need to use any of my stash because Mr Chisholm told me I could become his apprentice now, even though it’ll be next season before I’ll do him any good. I asked why, but Barney punched me in my unbroken arm and told me not to be stupid, so I just said yes after that. At least he didn’t slap me in the head like usual because then I probably would have puked.

I wish Barney hadn’t stopped me from getting an answer from Mr Chisholm. I want to know why he’s doing this. Why is he being so nice to me? I mean, he’s always been nice enough, not yelling or hitting like Duquesne and Barney, but he also always seems so… distant. Like he’s very far away from everything and everyone. 

Maybe that’s why I’m so thrown off by how he’s acting now. I mean, he’s talking about getting a hammock or something for me to sleep in when I’m healed up a little more and he even told me to call him Buck. Not that I would, that’s a name for heroes who protect orphans like you protected Steve, help others, and who always looks so kind in all the pictures I’ve found. Actually, maybe I should call him Buck, after all he (or maybe Barney depending on who you believe) protected me from Duquesne, and he’s helping me out. Of course, I thought Duquesne was helping me too, and look how that went. It’s childish of me to still want to think anybody here is a hero. Maybe heroes don’t exist at all anymore.

It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I survived today and I have a place to stay for now. Things could be worse. Of course, they could be better too, but at least I’ll have lots of time to finish my book now that I’ve got you all caught up on the shit show that is _The Adventures of Clint Barton, Dumbass Extraordinaire._

If there is an afterlife or whatever, I hope you’re there looking down at me right now. I know you’re probably rolling your eyes at me for starting a fight I couldn’t win, but I still bet that if you could have, you would have had my back for it too and that’s what counts, right?

Your friend,

Clint


	5. Chapter 5

September 6th, 1943

Hey Punk,

I just got your letters from July and I’m so happy for you, Stevie. 

I should have known that if anyone could take the kind of crummy cards life dealt you and turn them into a winning hand, it’d be you. Now all your stubborn pigheadedness has paid off and got you what you’ve always wanted: a life of action and adventure in the glorious army. 

Or maybe you did. I’m actually not entirely sure what you got into seeing as how both of the letters I got were so heavily censored that I’m surprised they even left your name on them. Of course, that sorta tells me something in itself, doesn’t it?

That’s fine though. It doesn’t matter how unconventional your posting maybe, the important thing is that you made it, buddy! I’m really, really happy for you, and I hope being in the army is everything you thought it would be.

Whenever our paths cross again, I’m gonna make you buy me a drink and tell me about all the parts that got censored out of your letters, and only mostly so I can have a good laugh picturing you willingly taking orders from anybody. 

Wherever our paths cross again that is. I mean, I’ve got no idea what unit or even what army group you’re in so it’s not like I can keep an eye out for you to be in my area. Hell, even if I did know where to look for you, it probably wouldn’t help much since half the time I don’t know where I’m at. 

It feels like the 107th hasn’t stopped moving once since our boots hit the beach back in [redacted] two months ago. The whole squad actually cheered when the Brass told us we were gonna be holding this ground for a while. That’s when you know you’re crazy, when you damn near weep with joy at the chance to dig out a hole in the mud to sleep in instead of sleeping on your feet while you march. 

I remember when I had big, noble goals about stopping the Nazis and protecting people. Now my goals are so much smaller: a few hours of sleep and some dry socks. Maybe, if I’m dreaming big, a hot meal and a bath too, though I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get either of those until we win the war. I won’t lie, that’s about half my motivation to keep fighting at this point, just wanting to be warm, clean, well fed, and, most importantly, home.

But that’s probably a crummy thing to be telling a guy just about to ship out himself. Unfortunately, I don’t really have any sterling words of advice to offer you except maybe keep your head down and your eyes open and, for fuck’s sake, don’t run half-cocked into every fight you see for a change. That’s a quick way to find yourself out of the army and buried in the ground instead. Of course, maybe by that point you’ll want the rest as much as I do.

Anyway, watch your back Stevie and please be careful. 

Good luck,

Bucky

\---

March 26th, 1999

Dear Bucky,

So, after the pages and pages of panic I made you listen to, my first solo show actually went pretty well. 

I mean, it’s early in the season so there wasn’t exactly a full house but they still all cheered when Buck introduced me with my brand new stage name and I even managed to smile big and wave, and hit all my marks. 

Okay, okay- I hit most of my marks. While I was doing the cartwheel part with the swinging targets, my second shot was almost a full inch off center. No excuses, I fucked up and miss-timed it. None of the audience seemed to notice, but Buck gave me a pointed look while I was squaring up for the next sequence.

Screw him though, I didn’t snap a string, or accidentally shoot a townie (or shoot Hal on purpose, I mean he was standing _right there,_ I totally could’ve maimed him a little) and I didn’t throw up from the stage fright until afterwards.

Of course, it was while I had my head mostly inside one of the big trash barrels, losing everything I’d managed to eat in the last couple of days, that Barney showed up. Is showing up at the worst possible moment like an older brother superpower? Still, for about three seconds I was sorta glad to see him, he rubbed my back until I was done and let me use his flask to rinse the taste out of my mouth. Then I made the mistake of asking him what he thought of my show and he looked at me blankly and said he’d seen me throw up plenty of times before.

Yeah, he didn’t remember that tonight was my first big performance, even though it’s all I’ve been talking about for weeks. Honestly, I don’t know why I was surprised by that, it’s not like I expected him to watch or anything. I guess, I was still kinda hoping he would.

I’m dumb that way.

I mean, would it have killed Barney to take an interest in my life just this once? Even after I told him again about how tonight was my first act, he didn’t bother congratulating me. Not so much as a ‘well done’ or a ‘I’m happy for you’, just an ‘oh’ and a shrug before he launched into his news. I wasn’t fucking asking him to throw me a parade or anything, I just would’ve like some sort of acknowledgement.

I know, I know: I’m dumb.

But, on the bright side, it looks like this might be the last time Barney gets to disappoint me. The whole reason he did come looking for me tonight was so he could tell me about his big, new scheme: He’s leaving the show again, this time for good, he says.

I would have just shrugged it off, but this isn’t like the last time. He doesn’t have a half formed idea about running off to the big city and joining a ska band or whatever. No, this time the idiot went and joined the army. 

He showed me the enlistment papers, all signed and dated and just as official as anything. All I could do was stare. Of all the things I expected Barney to do, that hadn’t ever crossed my mind.

I think he expected me to congratulate him, which is sorta funny in a not very funny way, because a few seconds into my stunned silence he started getting pissy, and demanding to know why I wasn’t happy for him.

The thing is: I am sorta happy for him. I mean, I’m not thirteen anymore, and I know from reading your letters that life in the army isn’t all action, adventure, and glory, but I think it also might be good for Barney. 

After all, he’s not smart and caring like you and I don’t think he has any noble ideas to lose. Instead, he’s selfish, lazy, and horrible at planning for the future. It would do him good to have someone else in charge to keep him moving forward and to make sure he doesn’t fuck up too much. God knows, it’d be a weight off my mind not having to worry about him all the time for a change.

That was what I was thinking while I told him I was happy for him. 

It must have sounded like I meant it too, because Barney smiled and announced that was great because he talked to his recruiter and got all the paperwork started for me to join too.

That got another stunned silence, one I might have broken by shouting, “What the fuck?!” at him.

But really, what the fuck?!

The asshole had the nerve to look at me all confused that I wasn’t overjoyed, like it had never even crossed his mind that I wouldn’t just join with him, no questions asked. The sad truth is it probably hadn’t. So, then I actually had to explain that the last thing I wanted to do was leave everything I knew behind. I didn’t say, ‘again’ but I thought it real loud.

Of course, that made him mad, and he demanded to know why I wouldn’t want to leave when this place sucks so bad. I yelled that it sucks for him, but that shit’s going pretty good for me and that just because he’s always running away from his problems, it doesn’t mean he gets to drag me with him.

And… Okay, well, it got pretty ugly from there. I pointed out it was his fault I was here at the carnival working my ass off instead of being in a foster home and about to graduate high school like everyone else my age, and he called he an ungrateful bastard because he’d gone to a lot of effort getting the recruiter to take me even though I’m a few months too young so I could be just like my “stupid hero, Bucky.”

I almost lost it right there, but it wasn’t until he added that I didn’t need to worry because “the army’s taking faggots now” that I punched him- a solid left hook, just like Duquesne had shown me. Barney ended up flat on the ground with, I’m pretty sure, a broken nose. 

He stared up at me shocked, and I stared down at him, just as shocked and also a little sick. Then I offered him a hand up, and after a long moment he took it without meeting my eyes. After I pulled him up, he shoved the papers for my enlistment against my chest and muttered that the bus was leaving at 9 am and he hoped he’d see me on it before he walked off.

Running away from his problems again. Fucking Barney.

I almost threw the papers in the trash barrel right then, but I didn’t. I still have them right here, sitting next to me as I write all this out. 

After the fight, I stormed back to the trailer and climbed into my hammock and pulled my blanket over my head. When Buck got in I pretended to be asleep. Of course, I couldn’t sleep at all so as soon as it was light enough I got up and came outside to write to you.

Bucky, I just don’t know what to do. 

I don’t want to leave here anymore than I want to join the army, but it would be so good for Barney. He needs to do something or he’s going to pull one too many of his stupid stunts and end up in prison or dead, and if I’m not there to join with him he’s probably going to chicken out and end up in even worse trouble for it.

Maybe I should sign the damn papers and go. How bad could it be? I’m strong enough for anything the army could throw at me, and I bet my skill at shooting arrows would work just as well with a gun too. Why not make that my future instead of being a famous archer? Especially since it would keep me and Barney together. I mean, I know he’s a pretty crappy brother, but you don’t get to pick your family, and he’s all the family I’ve got left. Us Bartons have to stick together after all, right?

Guess I’d better go pack a bag. The next time I write to you it’ll be from basic.

Wish me luck,

Clint

P.S. I missed the bus.

I packed as fast as I could without waking Buck and ran the whole way into town, but I still missed it. The lady at the gas station said it had left only a few minutes before I got there. When I asked if anyone had gotten on, she remembered Barney clearly, a little because of the black eyes, but mostly because she’s pretty sure he stole some stuff from her store before he left.

I left the store before she could accuse me of stealing too and walked over to the bench next to the bus stop and sat down to catch my breath. Then I didn’t feel like moving, so I stayed there and watched the cars passing by, feeling relieved and sad all at the same time.

On the one hand, I really didn’t want to go, not when all my hard work here is starting to pay off. On the other hand, now that Barney’s gone I don’t have any family left. 

Yeah, I know that’s been pretty much true since mom died, after all she was always the one who held things together. Barney and I have done nothing but drift apart without her and him leaving me behind and going hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles away for who knows how long is just the final nail in that coffin. It’s still a blow all the same.

I bet that, unlike you, he’s not going to be much of a letter writer. 

It’s fine though, the important thing is that he finally made it somewhere on his own, even if that somewhere is the army. I hope it gives him some purpose.

After a couple hours of me sitting there, the manager of the gas station called the cops and they came and told me to go home, so I came back here. Buck was outside shooting when I walked up. He paused to look at me and the huge bag I was carrying and said, “So, Barney’s gone then.”

Of course he’d heard, news like that travels through the lot like a wildfire. I shrugged but didn’t say anything. He took another couple of shots, then said, “You know, I was thinking that to celebrate you doin’ so well with your first show, maybe I could get some pizza from town.” I could only nod, then I ducked into the trailer to put my clothes away and so he wouldn’t see my face.

Everything was put back where it belonged and I was calm again before he got back with the pizza. Like, so much pizza. At first I thought he’d managed to overestimate even my love for pizza, but then people started showing up- The Ivanov’s, Liu Wei and his sister Li Na, Roman, and a bunch of others.

Turns out most of them were watching my act last night. They were all waiting to have a party for me then but couldn’t find me, so they decided to do it today. 

It was great! They all told me their favorite parts of my performance, gave me mostly bad advice (though maybe Buck and I should shoot apples off each other’s heads at the same time- it is a classic after all) and, best of all, nobody mentioned Barney at all.

Now it’s late afternoon and everyone (and all the pizza) is gone and Buck’s fiddling with some arrows while I finish this letter. I need to go and start stretching for my second performance, but I wanted to talk to you first and apologize for all the drama I unloaded on you this morning. 

I’m hoping tonight goes a little better so I can get some sleep tomorrow. 

Wish me luck again!


	6. Chapter 6

October 13th, 1943

Hey Punk,

I haven’t heard from you since those last two letters in July, and I’m starting to get worried. I hope that nothing’s happened to you.

Of course, if something bad had happened I’d have probably heard about that at least. That sorta stuff travels fast, and those Letters of Condolence can find you even out here where normal letters can’t. That’s the army for you blazingly efficient in all the wrong ways. I mean, what do they think we’re gonna be able to do with more bad news? 

Actually, that’s a good point. There’s nothing I could do if I did hear something had happened to you, any more than getting another letter would do much to ease my mind. I’m just wasting both our time worrying like this. All I can do is assume you’re okay, off somewhere nice, as fit as you ever are, and happy to be fighting the good fight. 

If I picture it hard enough maybe I’ll even believe it’s true for a moment or two. It’s really difficult to hold on to any happy thoughts there, when the fight is so endless and every day is another man lost: to enemy fire, to friendly fire, to sickness, to just not being able to fucking take it anymore.

I remember being so angry when my old lieutenant didn’t bother learning our names, now I understand him better. That’s just how it goes, every time we lose someone it seems to hurt less and less, and I find that I have to force myself to bother getting to know their replacements. 

It hurt so much worse when I lost everyone that first time. I knew those guys so well; we talked about our lives before we joined up, our families, and the dreams we had for after the war. We were buddies, all of us. Comrades in arms. Almost brothers, like all the poems and books about war claimed we’d be.

I don’t feel like that any more. I don’t feel much of anything any more. It’s like there’s a thick fog between me and everything that happens now and, no matter how I try, I just can’t see through it to the things that used to matter so much.

Maybe because I’m too tired, but maybe also because I’m a sergeant now and it falls to me to regularly send my men out there to march and to die. Is this what it’s always like to be in command? You stop seeing your men as anything but numbers on paper. Not faces gone from the mess line: just objectives won. Not individual men out there, scared and fighting for their lives: just missions completed.

It doesn’t matter. 

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be dumping all my troubles on you like this, I’m sure you’ve got enough weight on your shoulders already. I’d just throw this letter in the fire but paper’s getting hard to come by and ink’s even harder. If I don’t manage to find your dumbass over here sometime soon I still wanted you to know that I’m okay so you don’t end up picturing all sorts of bad shit happening to me.

Yeah, things are hard at best and sometimes they are impossible, but, no matter what, the sun still rises every damn day and does it’s best to bring us some light and warmth. I figure, if it can be brave enough to do that for me, I can be brave enough to see the day it brings all the way through.

I still miss you Stevie, and I hope wherever the sun finds you, it finds you safe.

All my best,

Bucky

\---

February 15th, 2001

Dear Bucky,

Sorry to leave you hanging so long after my last letter, but it turned into a pretty busy week for me. I’m sorry too that my handwriting is worse than usual today, as it happens, taking an arrow in both shoulders doesn’t do much to help your penmanship.

Yeah, so as you probably guessed from that, this job didn’t go quite as smoothly as the last one did. I knew it wasn’t going to like three seconds into casing the place. It was an honest to God mansion, the kind of huge and fancy one that you see in movies and that means serious security, with cameras, laser sensors, and armed guards at least. 

I tried to tell Buck that, but he insisted that we had to hit it and hit it tonight, and there’s no point arguing with him when he’s made up his mind. I did manage to talk him out of his plan to try and sneak in, split up, and take everything we could before they knew we were there. There’s no way they wouldn’t have spotted us before we even made it halfway across the lawn. Instead, I got him to give me one of his exploding arrows then climbed midway up the tallest tree I could find and blew up the front gate as a distraction.

Of course, it worked like a charm! Angry guys poured out of the mansion like wasps, all shouting and pointing and making enough racket for Buck to slip in through the garage without a problem. Of course, then I had the problem of dealing with the ridiculous amount of guards now running around the yard, most with automatic fucking weapons.

On the bright side, it turns out that it’s a lot easier to shoot somebody if they’re already shooting at you. The only problem I had this time was my severe lack of arrows. I would’ve had to nail two or three guys with every single arrow and, even as good as I am, I couldn’t do it. Not right then. 

I’ve actually been thinking about the problem ever since and I think that if I made an arrow with very narrow aluminium fletching with a strong curve to give it a lot of rotation I might be able to get it through a solid object and well into a second one at least. Or maybe if I got even more spin I could get the arrow to return to me like a boomerang. Wouldn’t that be awesome?! 

But to make those I’m going to need a machine shop and then a bow with a much heavier draw weight, and, believe it or not, I didn’t have either of those things up that tree with me so I had to make do with the arrows I had.

I did manage to ricochet several arrows into multiple targets but the trade off was that they only dealt glancing blows and I also gave away my position. Luckily, the tree trunk was thick enough to provide good cover and the guys from the mansion hadn’t been training with Buck for three years and were terrible shots. Honestly, just awful. I’d be embarrassed for them, but I'm too busy being glad to be alive. 

They still almost got me by sheer force of numbers, but Buck showed up in time with the rest of his exploding arrows to make the rest scatter. As soon as they did, I dropped out of my tree to join him. He looked pretty pleased with himself, so I guess he’d gotten whatever he came for, which was good because sirens were already coming our way. A lot of sirens.

Buck jerked his head back towards where the Chevy was parked and I managed to follow him two whole steps towards safety before it all went to shit. This time it was because that’s when the pile of goons we were jogging by called out, “Clint?”

So… It turns out Barney wasn’t stationed at a base in Germany like he’d said when he called. Nope. He was right there, laying on the grass in front of a mansion in Chicago with an arrow in his neck. My arrow.

It must have been one of the ones I bounced around because it wasn’t stuck in very deep but it was still in his goddamn neck and there was **so much** blood. Of course, I rushed over to him and didn’t pull the arrow out of his neck because I’m not stupid, but I did take his hand and he smiled weakly up at me and said my name again.

Which was when Buck yanked me up and started dragging me to the truck. I shook him off and started back to Barney because I wasn’t about to leave him no matter what Buck said about him being fine and us needing to go before the cops got there. Then he tried to grab me again, I knocked his hands away and landed a hard slap to his jaw.

He recovered pretty quick though. He rubbed his jaw, looked over at where the flashing lights from the cop cars were now visible through the trees, then looked back at me and said, “Fine. If that’s the way it’s gonna be- fine. But you’re not taking me down with you.”

Then his bow swung towards me, and there was an arrow completely through my right shoulder and stuck into the tree behind me.

Now, it may surprise you but getting shot actually hurts pretty bad. I don’t recommend it and that’s an expert opinion now because, before I could even begin to react to the first shot, he loosed a second arrow into my other shoulder.

I screamed a little, I admit it. Can you blame me? I didn’t pass out though, because I’m so strong and amazing, and also because I don’t want to imagine what sort of damage having to support my weight would have done to my shoulders.

Buck ignored my very reasonable screaming while he picked up my dropped bow and then he actually stepped close enough to snap the quiver off my belt and get the knife out of my boot. I tried to kick him when he did, but the movement jarred the arrows in my shoulders and the screaming was all I could do for a minute.

When I had control again he leaned in and said right in my ear, “You had best be careful, son. The next time you pull a stunt like this, it’s gonna get you killed.”

Then he was gone.

Not even ten seconds later, half a dozen cop cars came around the last bend in the driveway and suddenly there were people milling about everywhere again, all shouting and pointing and talking into their radios.

When they finally noticed me, they started taking turns staring and demanding to know what I was doing there. ‘Being shot’ was not the answer they wanted. Neither was ‘sticking around,’ but I got one of the uniformed cops to snort at that one at least. 

Anyway, they didn’t really believe me when I told them that I had just been walking by when I heard the fighting, but all of the goons that remained had only seen Buck and thought he was alone. Plus, I didn’t have any weapons and, even if I had, it’s not like I could have shot myself in the shoulders. 

Eventually they decided to let the paramedics help me. That in itself took almost three damned hours, because, apparently, they’d never had to deal with a guy stuck to a tree with arrows before. They called for opinions from all sorts of people, took more pictures than I think they really needed to, and generally argued about what to do before they finally cut through the arrows as close to my shoulders as possible and yanked me off them. 

I did pass out then, which I appreciated even though waking up in the hospital wasn’t as fun this time as it was last time for sure. I guess cute little kids who’ve been beaten up get better treatment than teenage delinquents who’ve been shot and have to stay handcuffed to their hospital bed during their treatment awaiting police questioning. Who’d have guessed?

Still, the endless round of x-rays and other tests they did showed both arrows managed to miss the joint entirely, leaving no lasting damage to either shoulder. The doctors were surprised, and, honestly, so was I, but I can hear Barney in my mind telling me not to question good luck, and, there’s no doubt, I was super lucky. 

The last doctor who talked to me was even pretty sure that I’ll have full use of my arms again. He told me too that they’d started me on antibiotics to keep any infection down and cheerfully told me that I’d be well enough to be released to the police in the morning. That wasn’t quite the good news the guy thought it was, but, bless his innocent heart, he willingly told me the name of the antibiotic and he even lent me a pen to ‘write my friend’.

Yeah so, from there it was easy. I broke the pen, used the ink cartridge and the spring to force the cuffs open, got through the vent in the wall to the next room, stole some clothes, somehow managed to get those clothes on, and borrowed a bottle of the antibiotic, found that the bottles of painkillers were locked up too well to get at (damnit), then I just walked straight out of the hospital.

I almost went by the ICU on my way out to check and see if Barney was okay. I mean, I know he was still alive when the ambulance took him away to that same hospital and it would have only taken a quick walk by his room to make sure he wasn’t dead at least. I didn’t do it though. Buck was right about that, if I keep making dumb choices like that I’ll end up dead for it. Besides, if I were caught it’d probably get Barney in just as much trouble as me.

Still, I want more than anything to know if Barney’s alive and, if he is, whether or not he’ll ever even want to see me again. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t, after all I did shoot him. Still, I hate to think that the last memory I might have of my brother will be of him bleeding out from a wound I caused. Maybe that’s pretty fitting for us though, I don’t know.

As the great poet said, “Whatever. Nevermind.” I’m just going to focus on being proud that for once I didn’t do the stupid thing so I got away clean. Oh, and FYI, you might want to avoid Chicago for a while, I bet right now there’s a warrant out for the arrest of a James Buchanan Barnes, wanted in connection to armed burglary. 

What? I wasn’t going to give the cops and the hospital my real name, and yours was the first one I thought of. Tell you what though, if our paths ever cross I’ll buy you a drink for the hassle. You seem like the forgiving type.

God knows, I’m not. So the first thing I did was head back to Carson’s.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t naive enough to think I could ever really return to the circus and my old life. It was one thing when Duquesne was stealing from Mr Carson himself, but I know enough now to realize that Carson would never side with me over Buck, not when he’s getting his cut of all Buck’s ‘side jobs’. No, I was going back mostly to get revenge on Buck for fucking shooting me.

Turns out I couldn’t even do that right.

When I got there, I waited until I was sure Buck was out before I broke into our trailer. I was planning to snap every single one of his bows in half and, if I had time, all the arrows too. That was until I found that all my things were still there, just like I’d left them- even the bow that Buck had taken from me at the mansion. It was just lying in my hammock, along with a full quiver of arrows: the good show arrows too, not the practice ones, like it was waiting for me.

I won’t lie, that sorta took the wind out of my sails. I figured Buck would have burned everything that was mine as soon as he got back from the job, but for some reason he didn’t. Like the clean shoulder wounds, I just don’t know what to make of it, Bucky.

I mean, I was angry when he shot me and left me for the police to arrest, but I wasn’t surprised- not like I was when Duquesne hurt me and abandoned me. I really believed the Duquesne liked me and wanted me around, but I guess I never let myself feel like Buck did. I was sure he was just using me as a means to an end too. Or I did until I found all my stuff intact, including the awesome and expensive bow he gave me on my birthday like it wasn’t the best gift I’d ever gotten.

What a horrible time to realize that maybe Buck really was my friend, right after I fucked that friendship up just like I fuck everything up.

What’s done is done though, right? I’m just wasting time worrying about it.

So, I packed what I could fit in a bag, took my bow and quiver, and left everything else. I did break one of the arrows and left it in my hammock, just to let Buck know I wouldn’t come back to bother him again. I don’t know if he’ll understand, but I had to try.

After that, I went to the shed your display is kept in during the off season and broke into it to get my emergency stash of money and my letters. On impulse, I took your letters too. Carson probably stole them in the first place, so taking them again doesn’t seem like a big deal. Besides, what if someone vandalized the display, or they got damaged in transit, or even if somebody else ends up stealing them? No. I need to know your letters are going to be okay and the only way I can do that is by taking care of them myself.

I have them rolled up in my quiver to protect them from getting crushed or wet and every once in a while I rest my hand over them and I feel better. I feel like you’re here with me. 

Right now we’re on a train heading east towards New York. I thought maybe you’d like to see Brooklyn again, and I could see if any shows roundabout there could use a sharpshooter act. If not, we’ll figure something else out. After all, the sun is shining, so we’ve got to be brave enough to see what this day will bring us, right?

All my best,

Clint


	7. Chapter 7

Bucky wiped his eyes on the damp sleeve of his hoodie, gently setting Clint’s last letter down on top of one he’d written and forgotten so long ago. 

He wasn’t sure when he had started crying, but guessed that the shock of his letters and the flood of memories they’d returned to him had begun the tears. 

He had long ago accepted he’d never get even a fraction of the memories Hydra had stolen from him back, but that didn’t fill the hollowness they had left behind. This little glimpse had awakened enough fragments to bridge some of those gaps, and the memories and emotions that were now his again were settling harshly into his mind, like stitches on a fresh wound, painful but also healing.

It was a feeling he’d become too familiar with since he started clawing his way back to himself, and one he could ignore with the ease of long practice. 

That’s why he was pretty sure that Clint’s letters were the reason he couldn’t seem to stop crying. That was a new kind of pain, one that had lodged deep in his heart, as sharp as shrapnel and as impossible to either ignore or remove. 

He’d known that Clint’s childhood had been bad, he’d even thought he had an idea how bad, but nothing could have prepared him for the reality. A horror only amplifed by how starkly the letters told it, as if a young Clint couldn’t even conceive of a different life, one with love and support and, fuck, even just regular meals. One where he could have been the child he was, free of worry and responsibility.

It was enough to make Bucky dangerously furious, with the cold, implacable rage of the Winter Soldier. He wanted to find every person who’d so carelessly hurt and neglected Clint, starting with the asshole brother Bucky had never known he had, and show them the full range of torture techniques Hydra had perfected on him.

He was equally and unmeasurably sad and wanted to find Clint and spend the rest of his life smothering him with so much support, care, and love that it would balance out the lack of all those things in his childhood.

Caught between the two impulses, Bucky could only sit there and stare sightlessly ahead, too lost in his own increasingly turbulent thoughts to register anything else. 

He had no idea how long he sat there, but by the time he had enough control of his emotions to recall himself to his surroundings, he found his body wouldn’t respond to his commands. With a sick feeling of dread, he realized the failsafe Hydra had programmed into him had been triggered, one that was intended to keep him paralysed and helpless until his now long dead handlers could retrieve him.

When Clint came home some time later, Bucky was still there, sitting rigidly on the floor as frozen as if he was back in cryo.

Bucky heard the door to the apartment open and Clint’s voice calling his name as his footsteps approached the bedroom. He redoubled his efforts to move, to speak, to do anything but to no avail.

“Bucky?” Clint called as he appeared in the doorway. “You still asleep? I thought we were meeting for-”

Unable to turn his head, Bucky watched as best he could from the corner of his eye as Clint stopped in his tracks. Bucky couldn’t picture how he must look- unnaturally still, his face stained with tears- but it must have been bad because Clint seemed to age a decade in less than a second, hard lines of worry etching his usually open face as he breathed out a soft, “Aw, Bucky, no.”

Then Clint was on the floor kneeling next to him, one hand reaching out to brush his hair back. Bucky jolted at the soft touch but still couldn’t break free of the conditioning enough to do more. Clint gently turned his head so Bucky was looking into worried blue eyes and said firmly, “James Buccanan Barnes.” 

Bucky blinked at the new activation phrase and just like that his body was back under his control. He took a shuddering breath and really focused on Clint’s face as the part of him that was still the Winter Soldier faded back into the recesses of his mind. 

Clint smiled at him, his eyes still worried. “Man, it’s been a while since you had one of those.”

“It could’ve been longer,” Bucky said, trying to sound sarcastic but only managing to sound shaky. “I wouldn't have complained.”

“I bet not. Any idea what triggered it?”

When Bucky looked guiltily down Clint followed his gaze, only then seeming to notice the open box and the neatly stacked letters. 

“Oh,” he sighed.

He didn’t look angry, which Bucky deserved, he looked resigned and immeasurably tired. It broke Bucky’s heart, knowing he’d put that look on the face of the man he’d so recently resolved to never let suffer again.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Bucky said, trying to meet Clint’s eyes so he would see his sincerity. “I should’ve left your stuff alone, I know that, but I saw my name and then I just…” He trailed with a helpless shrug. 

“It’s okay, I don’t suppose I could’ve stopped myself either,” Clint replied, refusing to make eye contact.

“Still doesn’t make it right.”

Clint shrugged. “I mean, they were your own letters and it’s not like I was exactly trying to hide that I had them. It just never came up.”

“I can’t see how it ever would have.”

“Fair. Unless I used it as an icebreaker. I could’ve just rocked up to you like, ‘Oh, hi! I know we just met, but I had a crush on you when I was a kid.’”

It was a deflection, Bucky knew that, but he rolled with it. 

Pretending to be shocked, he said, “Wait! You had a crush on me?”

“You couldn’t tell that from my letters?”

When Bucky shook his head, Clint continued, “Well, I did. Thank heavens, I eventually got over it though.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said dryly, “we might’ve ended up dating or something.”

“I know, right?! That would’ve been terrible.”

Bucky nodded gravely. “I can’t even imagine. Though, if you had still had a crush, it might’ve explained why you were so nice to me right from the start.”

“Oh no, that was solely because of your ass,” Clint said, equally grave.

Bucky couldn’t help it, he laughed. It wasn’t a great laugh, but it and the joking had cut some of the tension. Clint smiled back and pulled him into a gentle hug before he settled down on the floor next to Bucky, their shoulders touching.

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” he said softly. “I should have told you about your letters so you could have been more prepared before you read them.”

“Prepared for my letters?” Bucky asked, confused.

“Yeah,” Clint replied, just as confused. “It must’ve been hard to relive that shit.”

“No! Well, maybe a little. I mean, it wasn’t exactly the happiest time.” He took an unsteady breath, shoving away the memories of being so far from home, surrounded by so much death again.

Clint shifted to wrap his arm around Bucky’s shoulder in a half hug even as he tilted his head in a ‘there you go’ motion.

“Still,” Bucky continued, “I think it was more your letters that got to me.”

“What? My letters?”

“Sweetheart, of course your letters. It was way worse reading about you going through so much shit and being hurt and so alone-”

Bucky couldn’t help it, he sniffled wetly as the tears started again.

“Oh, come on,” Clint said. “I know the circus wasn’t great, but it wasn’t that bad, especially compared to the literal warzone you were in.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it really was. I signed up for the war, but you-you were just a little kid. You didn’t deserve any of that.”

Clint shrugged. “Maybe not.” 

“Definitely not,” Bucky corrected him.

“Okay, so I _definitely_ did not deserve some of the stuff that happened to me, but that doesn’t change that it did happen. And it brought both of us here in the end, didn’t it?”

How very like Clint to see the brightside, Bucky thought. Still, looking around the bedroom he and Clint shared, so full of happy memories and warmth, he had to admit that Clint was right. Bucky wouldn’t spare himself even any moment of the pain he’d suffered in the last century if it meant he wouldn’t have eventually gotten to this place, found this man.

Instead of admitting Clint’s point, Bucky just smiled softly and said, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Bucky.”

“And I’m sorry I read your letters without your permission.”

“Eh,” Clint shrugged, “it’s my own fault for keeping them in the first place. I knew I should have gotten rid of them all.” 

Bucky didn’t quite sigh. He also didn’t try to argue, they were working on Clint’s habit of taking the blame for everything, but now wasn’t the time.

Instead, he said, “So there _were_ more letters. I sorta figured.”

“Oh yeah, a lot more. You were basically my imaginary friend for a lot of years and I used to write to you almost daily.”

“But you got rid of the rest of them?”

Clint looked away. “Yeah. I, um, had a bad time right after the Battle of New York and burned a lot of stuff.”

“Burned?” Bucky asked, incredulous. 

“I never would’ve done that to your letters of course! I’d never let them be harmed.”

“That’s not what I was worried about. Who would care about my letters? I was widely considered dead and little more than a footnote in Steve’s history. But your letters were a part of your past. How could you burn them?”

“As you pointed out, they weren’t exactly a good part.”

“And as you pointed out, it doesn’t matter because they made you who you are today.”

“That was the problem!” Clint said, waving his free arm for emphasis. “I hated myself, hated everything I had ever been and what I had become that I let Loki use me like that.”

“Sweetheart-” Bucky started gently.

“No, I know, but at the time I wanted to just forget it all. I thought that if I could, it would put the past behind me for good.”

Bucky could understand that so he just nodded and rested his head against Clint’s. “I’m glad you kept these at least.”

“Yeah well, I guess that rereading them reminded me how much comfort I’d taken in writing them in the first place.” He smiled wryly, “Even then, you were there to help me.”

“I wish I could have been there for you for real too.”

“All that matters is that you’re here for me now.”

“Always,” Bucky said and he’d never meant a single word more in his life.

“That’s what I was hoping,” Clint muttered. Then louder he said, “Actually, I do have another letter to you that I’ve been holding onto for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“Yup. Let me grab it.”

With a final squeeze, Clint let Bucky go so he could stand up and walk the few steps over to his night stand. Pulling out the middle drawer he rummaged around until he found a little notebook and a white pill bottle, then he came back to crouch in front of Bucky. 

Clint flipped through the notebook, finally stopping on a page towards the back before he handed it to Bucky. The top line read, _Dear Bucky,_ then the rest of the page was a mess of things half-written and crossed out. 

Clint rubbed the back of his neck with the hand not holding the pill bottle, embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t get far. Turns out there are no words for everything you mean to me. Maybe this will say it better though.”

Twisting the lid off the pill bottle, he shook it into his hand. A handful of aspirin spilled out along with a solid black band of metal. A ring, Bucky realized, his breath catching in his throat.

Clint shifted from his crouch until he was down on one knee and held out the ring and loose aspirin. “Dearest Bucky, will you marry me?”

The tears were back in Bucky’s eyes, but he couldn’t care less. He threw himself at Clint, knocking him over and sending the pills and ring to scatter across the floor in his haste to kiss him.

When he pulled away to catch his breath, Clint beamed up at him just as breathlessly. Still, he found enough air to casually say, “So, is that a yes?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but had a feeling his matching grin undermined the gesture. “Of course it fucking is! I’d love to marry you.”

“Awesome,” Clint said, leaning up to press his lips back to Bucky’s.

Bucky threaded his hands through Clint’s hair, and deepened the kiss, deciding as he did so that, yeah, this hoodie was definitely lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank hopelessly_me and the incomparable CruciatusForeplay for loving this story deeply enough to make me love it enough to finish it.


End file.
